What better person to address a network's biggest problem than the master of addresses? CBS is chasing younger viewers this season like tornadoes target trailer parks. If there is one centerpiece new series in CBS's game plan, it is Central Park West, the latest creation of Darren Star, who gave Fox the locale-oriented, youth appeal hits Beverly Hills, 90210 and Melrose Place. Nothing could transform CBS's ratings fortunes and musty image faster than a hit serial with youth appeal. With the ferocious viewer loyalty this genre brings, it also could be a building block to promote other new shows, much as Fox has done with BH 90210 and Melrose Place.

Before the dust from the collapsed towers had settled, conventional wisdom had congealed: "Everything has changed." But what about what matters most, the public's sensibility? It has taken five years for 9-11 to receive a novelist's subtle and satisfying treatment, but it was worth the wait for Claire Messud's The Emperor's Children. Her intimation of the mark the attacks made on the American mind is convincing because in her comedy of manners, as in the nation's life, that horrific event is, oddly, both pivotal and tangential.

Two more CBS rookie series have been pulled from the air, victims of ratings anemia. Central Park West, the cornerstone of CBS' drive to attract younger viewers, is going on hiatus and will be back early in 1996, the network said. When it returns, it will be without its star, Mariel Hemingway, who announced this month that she was leaving the show. Courthouse, which has been following CPW on Wednesdays, is following it to the sidelines. But unlike CPW, Courthouse will not be back - it has been canceled.

Iran's chief prosecutor renewed the death sentence against British author Salman Rushdie on Friday, saying "the shedding of this man's blood is obligatory." Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini said in a Feb. 14, 1989, fatwa, or Islamic decree, that Rushdie should be killed for allegedly insulting the Prophet Mohammed in his book The Satanic Verses. Since then, Rushdie has lived largely in hiding and under the protection of the British government. "Any Muslim who hears an insult to the prophet must kill the person who commits the insult," prosecutor Morteze Moqtadaie said in a sermon Friday at Tehran University.

POMPANO BEACH -- The figures, which are staggering, mean little to driver John Campbell. Tell him that a victory in either of tonight`s Breeders Crowns for juveniles at Pompano Harness Track will give him career earnings of more than $70 million, and there is silence. Tell him that the pacers and trotters he has driven in 16 years have earned more money than Billy Haughton`s and Stanley Dancer`s did in a combined 88 years, and Campbell does not respond. "You just can`t react," said Campbell, who tonight will drive 6-5 favorite Central Park West in the $429,914 Breeders Crown Pace for 2-year-old fillies.

POMPANO BEACH -- Ron Waples thinks it may be part age, part ego. After 20 years of training older horses and catch driving up north, Waples decided last year to winter in South Florida. "When you get over 40," Waples, 44, said, "the snow seems to get colder. But I also started a few years ago to concentrate on younger horses. Maybe it`s ego, but it`s intriguing to watch them develop. It`s interesting. You see them slowly come around." Case in point? Windy Answer, a 2-year-old filly pacer who will be the overwhelming favorite tonight when she takes on six others in Pompano Harness Track`s $151,860 Matron Stakes.

POMPANO BEACH -- This was not what the folks had planned. Wake-up calls at 5 a.m., hotwalking at 7 a.m., mucking stalls one hour later. This was not the way Bill and Gloria Vreeland had envisioned their daughter Linda spending her life. Three years at the State University of New York at Stony Brook had Linda Toscano seriously considering veterinary school, and her parents thinking about their daughter running a practice in the suburbs. House calls to the local farm, office visits from the worried neighbor with the coughing poodle.

Anyone would recognize that husky voice. It's Lauren Hutton - mega-model, movie star and, most recently, TV interviewer. "I'm on the set of Central Park West and they're going to call me back any second now. ... Gotta go. I'll call you back." And she's gone. Dial tone city. Besides a recurring role in the glama drama Central Park West (which has won a temporary stay from CBS although there's no word on the new scheduling), Hutton has her eponymous syndicated talk show (WBFS-Ch. 33 at noon and 1:30 a.m.)

The City Council batted about a few suggestions but still has not decided what to name the baseball park west of Central Park Elementary School. Officials chose their favorites from about 75 names submitted by residents and employees and then decided to wait to discuss the matter further. The $2.5 million park on Cleary Boulevard near Nob Hill Road will have seven baseball fields, a play area, picnic shelters and a lake. Mayor Frank Veltri suggested Play Ball Park. Council member Edd Weiner liked Cleary Park as a way to identify its location.

Bobby Ewing once stepped out of a shower and, in effect, told the audience the previous year on CBS didn't matter. Dallas was going back to its old ways. Les Moonves, CBS Entertainment president, made a similar comment during his network's midseason press tour here. The tunnel-visioned pursuit of 18to 49-year-old viewers is history, he said. People over 50 matter again. "With the advent of the Baby Boomers turning 50 this year, maybe it's time for Madison Avenue to change its demographics."

NBC has soared to the pinnacle of Mount Nielsen behind its "Must-See TV" Thursday night. If anything is to shoot down the Peacock, it might be NBC's old "Must-See TV" Thursday, although in those days it was billed as "The Best Night of TV on TV." Key components of NBC's "Best Night" lineup from the late '80s are being reassembled elsewhere. In 1985-'86, The Cosby Show, Family Ties and Cheers fueled NBC's surge from what seemed to be a lifetime lease on the Nielsen basement to the ratings penthouse.

Anyone would recognize that husky voice. It's Lauren Hutton - mega-model, movie star and, most recently, TV interviewer. "I'm on the set of Central Park West and they're going to call me back any second now. ... Gotta go. I'll call you back." And she's gone. Dial tone city. Besides a recurring role in the glama drama Central Park West (which has won a temporary stay from CBS although there's no word on the new scheduling), Hutton has her eponymous syndicated talk show (WBFS-Ch. 33 at noon and 1:30 a.m.)

One of the hottest tickets off-Broadway in New York will close Miami's Coconut Grove Playhouse season. Death Defying Acts, three serio-comic playlets by Woody Allen, David Mamet and Elaine May, will run April 12-28, with previews starting April 9. No casting has been announced. The New York production at the Variety Arts Theater in lower Manhattan is scheduled to close Feb. 25, but Grove officials aren't saying whether the theater is making a bid for any members of the New York company.

Bobby Ewing once stepped out of a shower and, in effect, told the audience the previous year on CBS didn't matter. Dallas was going back to its old ways. Les Moonves, CBS Entertainment president, made a similar comment during his network's midseason press tour here. The tunnel-visioned pursuit of 18to 49-year-old viewers is history, he said. People over 50 matter again. "With the advent of the Baby Boomers turning 50 this year, maybe it's time for Madison Avenue to change its demographics."

Two more CBS rookie series have been pulled from the air, victims of ratings anemia. Central Park West, the cornerstone of CBS' drive to attract younger viewers, is going on hiatus and will be back early in 1996, the network said. When it returns, it will be without its star, Mariel Hemingway, who announced this month that she was leaving the show. Courthouse, which has been following CPW on Wednesdays, is following it to the sidelines. But unlike CPW, Courthouse will not be back - it has been canceled.

LAST YEAR'S Miami Book Fair International could have been a disaster. Instead, the largest literary event in the country had what may have been its finest hour. Relentless rains forced the cancellation of the three-day street fair that is the climax of the festival. That meant no free concerts, no children's activities, no cooking demonstrations, no publishers' exhibits. Would anyone come merely to see and hear authors read from their books, answer questions, sign autographs? The answer was a resounding yes. Of course, the multitudes who come for the street fair were absent, but the au-thor appearances drew as well as ever.

One of the hottest tickets off-Broadway in New York will close Miami's Coconut Grove Playhouse season. Death Defying Acts, three serio-comic playlets by Woody Allen, David Mamet and Elaine May, will run April 12-28, with previews starting April 9. No casting has been announced. The New York production at the Variety Arts Theater in lower Manhattan is scheduled to close Feb. 25, but Grove officials aren't saying whether the theater is making a bid for any members of the New York company.

LAST YEAR'S Miami Book Fair International could have been a disaster. Instead, the largest literary event in the country had what may have been its finest hour. Relentless rains forced the cancellation of the three-day street fair that is the climax of the festival. That meant no free concerts, no children's activities, no cooking demonstrations, no publishers' exhibits. Would anyone come merely to see and hear authors read from their books, answer questions, sign autographs? The answer was a resounding yes. Of course, the multitudes who come for the street fair were absent, but the au-thor appearances drew as well as ever.

What better person to address a network's biggest problem than the master of addresses? CBS is chasing younger viewers this season like tornadoes target trailer parks. If there is one centerpiece new series in CBS's game plan, it is Central Park West, the latest creation of Darren Star, who gave Fox the locale-oriented, youth appeal hits Beverly Hills, 90210 and Melrose Place. Nothing could transform CBS's ratings fortunes and musty image faster than a hit serial with youth appeal. With the ferocious viewer loyalty this genre brings, it also could be a building block to promote other new shows, much as Fox has done with BH 90210 and Melrose Place.

The City Council batted about a few suggestions but still has not decided what to name the baseball park west of Central Park Elementary School. Officials chose their favorites from about 75 names submitted by residents and employees and then decided to wait to discuss the matter further. The $2.5 million park on Cleary Boulevard near Nob Hill Road will have seven baseball fields, a play area, picnic shelters and a lake. Mayor Frank Veltri suggested Play Ball Park. Council member Edd Weiner liked Cleary Park as a way to identify its location.